Team Malaysia

Tuesday, January 07, 2014

Status quo mooted for next junior hockey team

The
Malaysian junior hockey side did well by winning the Asian title in
2012 and finishing fourth in the Junior World Cup last December in New
Delhi. - Filepic

KUALA LUMPUR: The national juniors (Project 2013)
team management led by Mirnawan Nawawi and K. Dharmaraj could well be in
line to handle yet another project squad - the Project 2016 squad.
With the next Junior World Cup Finals set for 2016, the Malaysian
Hockey Confederation (MHC) are due to name their next management team
soon.

The MHC coaching committee is of the opinion that the same team
should be given the task as they have done well to achieve the target
set for them last year and have a good team in place to build another
strong squad for the 2016 challenge.

The juniors last year finished fourth in New Delhi to match their previous best outing in the series achieved in 1979 and 1982.

MHC coaching committee chairman Manjit Majid Abdullah said on Monday
that the committee will look at several options but for the moment
retaining the current setup of the juniors team is the best possible
solution.

“This team has surpassed the target set for them and they have also
worked very hard over a four-year period to mould a strong team.

”My committee and I see no reason why they cannot be retained for yet
another term (for the Junior World Cup). We will have a meeting within
the next two weeks and we will look at other possible options. But for
now we are comfortable with the idea of keeping Dharmaraj as the chief
coach.
“He has the experience and is also able to draw on the experience of
the earlier stint to iron out the kinks in the weak areas,” he added.

Besides Mirnawan and Dharmaraj, the other members of the coaching
staff are Nor Azlan Bakar, K. Gobinathan, M. Nadarajah and Lim Chiow
Chuan.

Manjit said that a dialogue session will be held on Tuesday with the
various national coaches and MHC president Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad
Shah.

“The session is to review the position of the teams and also to see what needs to be done in the coming months.

“It will also basically touch on the various tournaments that our
teams have taken part in and assess the performance of the management
team.

“It will also give us a guide on the options that are available in
looking at the next junior team management. The coaching committee will
meet later and the discussion at this dialogue session will help us make
recommendations to the MHC council,” he said.

Manjit said no changes are expected in the senior team. South African
Paul Revington is the chief coach with A. Arulselvaraj as his
assistant. KLHA president George Koshy is the team manager.